Not a museum piece that attempts to do ten things and not one of them well -- only a solid machine that does the one thing it should: make a great cup o' joe!
Positive Product Points
The most important: this cofee maker lives up to its billing. This produces the best coffee of any drip coffee maker that I have ever encountered. Easy to clean. Easy to use.
Negative Product Points
Lots of parts that go together. Plastic water resevoir Only 1.25 litre capacity
I had to really stretch it here.
Detailed Commentary
When I pulled this baby out of the box, I noticed an extemely heavy duty electric cable - what appeared to be #14 gage (15 Amp) with a three-prong plug -- not some wimpy #18 gage lamp-wire. Hmmm...I thought, " This could be a good sign. This baby must demand some watts." In other words, it must have a helluva heating element. No other coffee maker that I have ever purchased in my 27 years of buying them has ever had a cable this heavy.
This is really the key. The ads state it heats water at 200 F, which it does, and what a difference.
This year I went through two new coffemakers that were abysmal. They made poor coffee and I could not believe how ignorant the designs were. Who made them? Cuisinart & Krups. I returned the Cuisinart after I determined that it would take a tractor trailer load of coffee after about a week of screwing with it. The Krups was truly horrible. I finally got it to make a drinkable cup of coffee using a half of a tractor trailer load of coffee, but it kept coming apart, and finally its little clock/program function shorted out. On top of that, the carafe required inverting to get the last cup of coffee out. Hmmm maybe I should write a bad review of that one.
I began desperately searching for anything that could make a cup o' joe that didn't cost $500. I found the Technivorm's reviews here intriguing and read its review in Wine Spectator.
I have tried a couple of great coffees which cae with it from George Howell's Terrior Coffee, some Caribou Mocha Java and hold on to your seats: 100% Colombian Pre-ground 8:00 Coffee for the grovery store. OK before you stop reading, Consumer Reports gave this coffee the thumbs up and I purchased this for a camping trip and brought back what was left.
The difference among these four coffees was significant, but the Technivorm produced with every one of them the first time that I brewed them. I did not need to screw around for days with the measurements to get them to taste OK.
Yeah ok, maybe there are a few parts to clean, and it looks like something from "Plan 9 From Outer Space"; it sure as hell doesn't grind the beans, wake you up and run Excel spreadsheets. What do you want a museum piece that attempts to do ten things and not one of them well or a solid, machine that does the one thing it should: make a great cup o' java?
Buying Experience
Purchased from George Howell's Terroir Coffee http://www.terroircoffee.com. Great friendly staff, and fast shipping. I'd say a top-notch experience. The price above inclludes some Fruitopia filters and two bags of coffee. It was purchased in a bundle.
